Evangelicals, the coveted vote that can decide the president of Brazil

Since the mid-20th century, drought and poverty have pushed millions of Brazilians from the Northeast to the rich cities of the South.

They arrived in a hostile environment in which they found themselves abandoned by an absent State.

And they were embracing a new expanding faith.

Foursquare Church, General Convention of the Assemblies of God, Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, God is Love Pentecostal Church, Fundamentalist Presbyterian Church, Bola de Neve Church… are some of the best-known evangelical denominations in Brazil.

The country with the most Catholics in the world is undergoing a profound transformation that can be summed up in two or three figures: 14,000 Protestant temples are opened here every year, more than one every hour.

Meanwhile, the Pope loses faithful at an accelerated rate.

Catholics make up around half of the population (108 million), and evangelicals,

In a country with 156 million voters, evangelicals make up a thriving community of faithful and increasingly coveted by politicians;

especially now, at the gates of the elections on October 2, in which two titans will be measured: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 76, and Jair Bolsonaro, 67. If neither obtains more than 50% of the votes, There will be a second round on October 30.

Although Brazilian evangelicals turned their backs on politics until the 1970s, they later enthusiastically embraced it.

They have formidable power in Congress and, with Bolsonaro, they have more influence than ever at the top of power.

As they vote in a much more homogeneous way than other groups, they were crucial for the victory of the far-right, a candidate raised in the Catholic faith and re-baptized in the Jordan by an evangelical pastor, and whose wife and children are evangelical.

Misogynist, foul-mouthed and nostalgic for the dictatorship, in each act he presents himself as fearful of God and defender of the most traditional family.

Seven out of ten evangelicals voted for him in 2018 and he pampers them.

He placed a "terribly evangelical" judge on the Supreme Court, in the words of Bolsonaro himself.

The polls predict that support will now be more evenly distributed between Lula da Silva and Bolsonaro, but once again the latter will reap the support of the majority.

In the past, some leaders were allies of progressive governments.

The President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, receives the blessing during a music festival organized by an evangelical radio station in Rio de Janeiro, on July 2.

Buddha Mendes (Getty Images)

Evangelicals are leading a revolution, says Brazilian anthropologist Juliano Spyer, author of the book

(People of God. Who are the evangelicals and why do they matter).

A change to which the

and the wealthy classes —whites— do not pay attention because its protagonists are poor.

It is promoted by a legion of mothers, poor women, black or mestizo, who live on the outskirts of the cities, where public services are lacking and there is plenty of violence.

Christians of the Protestant branch, they lack centralized power and do not worship images.

The engine of the transformation that Brazil is experiencing is not the traditional Churches, such as the Lutheran or the Presbyterian, but the newer and more followed Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal ones.

These interpret the Bible literally, have Jesus Christ as a great pillar and consider it essential to have the will to be baptized and proselytize.

Music and a fervor bordering on ecstasy are key elements of their exuberant rites.

And neo-Pentecostals add meritocracy and the pursuit of success to those ingredients.

The first warning that anyone who studies Brazilian evangelicals makes to the layman is that both Churches and faithful make up an extremely diverse community.

It is a mosaic that includes elements as disparate as the Universal Church, which is a true emporium — it has television channels, radio stations, a newspaper and a political party, Republicans, with 44 deputies — and it is the great symbol of the Theology of Prosperity , or the temple that opens in a garage with the basics: a Bible and a handful of plastic chairs.

It is a universe that includes elements that leave anyone stunned: the case of the federal deputy of Rio de Janeiro Flordelis de Souza, adoptive mother of 50 kids, actress and gospel singer, accused of ordering one of her sons to be shot to death of her husband.

Along with these striking realities, there is the routine: that black woman, discreet, white-haired, with a skirt below the knees and without makeup —as her Church recommends— who earns her living as a manicurist in a wealthy neighborhood or the driver of a Uber that carries the Bible in the glove compartment or copes with huge traffic jams listening to sermons.

Two believers and a Bible, at the Evangelical Assembly of God Church in the Ipiranga neighborhood, in São Paulo, at the beginning of September.

Lela Beltrao

One or the other is in every corner of this country of continental size.

Also in the most remote of the Amazon, like the small wooden temple on stilts of the Assembly of God —the largest Brazilian congregation, with 12 million members— that stands in a village in the Mamirauá nature reserve.

Locals say that the Catholic priest stops by once a month while the evangelical pastor and his wife arrived to settle.

Brazil's Catholic Church tried to convince the Vatican to allow respected men in their villages to be ordained as priests in the Amazon, even if they were married, in an attempt to alleviate the shortage of priests and curb stiff competition from Protestantism, which allows it.

The response at the 2019 synod was negative.

prosperity theology

Sunday.

Bible school at the Church of the Assembly of God in Ipiranga, São Paulo.

The protagonists of this often-ignored revolution are women like Edjane Gama, 45, or the sisters who listen to her speak on the topic of the day, how to manage money in a Christian way.

Standing behind a lectern, with a firm voice and simple language, Gama warns them about the temptations of consumerism, the risks of relying on credit ("when you pay in cash, your purchasing power is much greater"), and delves into the mysteries of interest rates and inflation (“it is high, but it has not exploded like in Argentina”).

Very useful information in very humble homes like yours, where taking advantage of every real is imperative to move the family forward.

The faithful are divided into groups: women, men, youth and children.

These Churches —rich and humble, large or small— supply countless gaps caused by the weakness of the State.

Therein lies its appeal.

In his office in São Paulo, the anthropologist Spyer explains: “They don't discuss whether the Bible in Latin or in Hebrew means the same thing.

They talk about robbery, teenage pregnancy, violence, domestic violence.

It is a religiosity with the face of the people, that speaks the language of the people and that refers to the problems that beset it in a very intense way”.

Unemployment, violence, poverty, mistreatment...

Listening to them helps to understand, for example, to what extent any suggestion about expanding the rights to abortion, of the LGTBQ community or legalizing drugs causes enormous revulsion in millions of Brazilians.

The majority of the electorate (60%) prefers a candidate who defends family values ​​(traditional, of course) than having good economic proposals, according to the Datafolha survey.

A family in front of the Evangelical Assembly of God Church, in Ipiranga, last September.

Lela Beltrao

Giving up is not for them.

They seek healing for the pains of the soul and personal success.

Arriving from the United States in the mid-twentieth century, the Theology of Prosperity preached by neo-Pentecostals has deeply penetrated Brazil.

And from here it spreads to the rest of the continent, to Africa and Europe.

It goes hand in hand with that entrepreneurial spirit and the belief that discipline and individual effort allow us to overcome all adversity.

The Theology of Prosperity, says Bishop Estevam Hernandes, founder of Iglesia Renascer em Cristo, “is a highly manipulated concept.

It is not just about (achieving prosperity in) financial matters, but about being successful in everything you do, whether in your professional, financial, spiritual, ministerial or personal life.

In this universe, the tithe plays an essential role, although the pastors emphasize that it is not mandatory and that no one is audited

.

There are churches where small bills are delivered in envelopes;

Others deploy aggressive campaigns on television or the web and offer all kinds of facilities to donate.

It is common to do it with a card.

Every Brazilian convert has their story about what led them to “discover Christ” and how it transformed their life, but testimonies of redemption abound.

The Church helped many to get off drugs or alcohol.

Eliane Sampaio, 44, a student at the Ipiranga Sunday Bible School, was an alcoholic.

She says: "I drank a lot on weekends, I fought with everyone."

And she suffered terribly.

With discipline, titanic effort and faith, she managed to take back the reins of her life.

She now she helps others.

For a month, she has been welcoming with her husband and her children the three-year-old son of a drug addict whom she is trying to help get out of the well.

“There is a constant battle between her and her vice.

For now, she can't resist, but we have to protect her.

I say this because she is going to convert and she will be able to overcome that vice, ”she affirms.

The offer of activities, beyond the cults of the preachers, is very varied.

Among them, the most transcendental, in the opinion of Spyer, founder of the Evangelical Observatory, are the extracurricular activities for the children of those who go to work at dawn and only return after sunset.

“School only takes them up in the morning or afternoon, which leaves the children without a supervised activity for half the day.

And that leaves room for contact with recreational drugs, prostitution, criminal groups…”.

And there are the evangelicals with their ballet classes, music classes... They represent a refuge and a balm in an almost always hostile environment, where the threat of unemployment, drug traffickers, the police, is constant.

They feed the hungry, cure addictions.

A group of faithful in the Sunday Bible school of the Evangelical Assembly of God Church, in Ipiranga, last SeptemberLela Beltrão

Every day, thousands and thousands of poor Brazilians convert because they witness how the lives of those who came before them improve.

The most usual thing is that the first step is taken by the woman, who then takes her family.

And step by step, a virtuous circle can be created that Pastor Douglas Fidalgo, 44, of the Ipiranga Assembly of God, summarizes as follows: “They were helped, freed from vice, they created families, they stopped spending on drinks… And there was left over. money to take better care of the children, to invest in education”.

That is often the key to a better job, or even to go to college and fulfill the dream of so many families.

Let your children work in an office, sitting down.

The elections have once again brought evangelicals to the news in the media.

They don't usually like how they are portrayed.

But they are the most courted, along with women, in this duel between Bolsonaro and Lula.

The leftist, attacked from Bolsonarism with the falsehood that he could close Iglesias if he wins the elections, defends himself as best he can.

He remembers that he passed the law on religious freedom, that he is a believer, criticizes the use of religion to get votes and tries not to make mistakes.

He knows that he is moving on slippery ground.

Four years ago, the candidate of his party, Fernando Haddad, called Bishop Edir Macedo, leader of the Universal Church, which has almost two million members, a “fundamentalist quack hungry for money”.

Recently a discussion between the faithful inside a temple in the State of Goiás, in central Brazil, ended with a gunshot wound.

The anger began after the pastor recommended not to vote for leftist candidates.

The pastor closest to Bolsonaro, Silas Malafaia, says that "it is impossible for a Christian to be on the left."

And many Protestant leaders make explicit his preferred candidates.

This is the case of Bishop Hernandes, of the Iglesia Renascer em Cristo: “We support the re-election of the president, Jair Bolsonaro.

But it is not an imposition of the Church, we are in favor of each one choosing freely, ”he says in response to questions in writing.

"We support him because we believe that he represents our values ​​and our wishes for Brazil."

Evangelical worship celebrated in the Brazilian Congress, in Brasilia, last June.

Paula Cinquetti

Instead, Pastor Fidalgo, from the neighborhood of Ipiranga, prefers that politics remain outside the temple where he preaches: “Here they are not told who to vote for, in other churches there are pastors who support one candidate or reject another.

We don't talk about politics here."

To illustrate the enormous diversity even within the gigantic Assembly of God, Gedeon Alencar, author of several books on Brazilian Pentecostalism, makes a clear distinction on the telephone.

“The temples-shopping offer services every day, morning, afternoon and night.

They are spaces in which people enter and leave without creating bonds of affection.

As they are televised, people are very dressed.

They need parking.

They have a store, a bookstore, a restaurant.

An abyss separates it from the temple-house, which is usually on the outskirts.

There the faithful and the pastor are from the same neighborhood.

If someone is absent, they go to his house to ask.

Everyone knows who has a job, who lost it, who falls in love and who breaks up.

It is a moral community”, concludes this doctor in Religious Sciences.

Two more differences.

In the former, the shepherd, the musicians, the light and sound system are professionalized.

In the second, they are volunteers.

And even the seats reflect the disparity: “In the house temple, long benches;

temple

, soft individual seats”.

But bench or seat, the consensus is almost absolute when it comes to the traditional family, abortion, LGBTQ rights and drugs.

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